Sunday, November 2, 2008

Nic Cage Is Doing It Again in the Big Easy

SELLER: Nic CageLOCATION: Prytania Street, New Orleans, LAPRICE: $3,700,000SIZE: 13,176 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathroomsDESCRIPTION: The most superlative of Garden District mansions with the best of every amenity. Ample room for a large family and big-time entertainment venue with formal gardens, parking, and everything anyone could possibly want in a most grand of grand, star-quality home.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Okay children, Your Mama needs to interrupt this weekend of raucous and typically lurid behavior by our visiting compatriot Fiona Trambeau, who is currently holed up in our guest room with an outrageously manly blatino she picked up in Silver Lake last night, to discuss the dozens of recentreports and onslaught of covert communications we've received the last couple of days about hair challenged actor and prolific trophy house collector Nic Cage selling off the infamously blood soaked LaLaurie House in New Orleans.

At least one local New Orleans news outlet has recently reported that Mister Cage has listed the Royal Street fright house for $3,900,000. However, our meager early morning research did not turn up any listing for the LaLaurie house which happens to be located just around the corner from the almost as famous Jolie-Pitt house on Governor Nicholls Street. We did, however, turn up listing information for a property on pretty Prytania Street in the Garden District that records indicate is owned by the Oscar winning actor and listing information reveals has been hoisted on to the market with an asking price of $3,700,000.

Property records for the behemoth Big Easy beauty show that a trust controlled by Mister Cage purchased the historic 13,176 square foot mansion in June of 2005 for $3,450,000. Although Mister Cage purchased the house from an antiques dealer, it is our understanding that the previous owner was homoerotic vampire novelist turned Christian memoirist Anne Rice. Listing information shows the house includes six bedrooms and seven terlits divvied up into 5 full and 2 half bathrooms.

Listing information also shows the three story house claims a living room that measures in at a staggering 77' x 44' and a super sized dining room that stretches forty-four feet long. The meticulously maintained grounds include formal gardens, oodles of covered balconies with intricate iron work balustrades, large brick terraces and a heated swimming pool.

Mister Cage, a man who owns more properties than Your Mama cares to count, has lately been lightening his fat real estate portfolio. Not only did he recently sell off his big-ass bay front mansion in Newport Beach, CA for a reported $35,000,000, he has also recently listed a huge house in Las Vegas (with an asking price of $9,500,000), the gorgeously rambling Gray Craig estate in Rhode Island (listed at $15,900,000), and his legendary Bel Air residence on CopadeOro road which currently carries and asking price of $29,999,000.

One has to wonder (and privately snicker and speculate) why Mister Cage would chose to list so many high priced properties at a time when real estate prices are headed down the proverbial terlit. Should we soon expect his 500-year old Bavarian Schloss to hit the market? Or what about the private Bahamian island he's rumored and reported to own? Or the castle outside of Bath, England? So what gives Mister Cage? Why sell now? With 12 film project in post production, filming or scheduled to be filmed, it can't be that he needs the dough, right?

39 comments:

The LaLaurie rumor may have been started because of the listing below, which is for 1041 Royal and looks very much like the LaLaurie House at 1140 Royal. But 1041 is only 2 stories, while the LaLaurie home seems to be 3 stories. Here are 2 relevant links to compare the different houses.

The entrance gates and fence are beautifully done but the place does have an overall spookiness about it. It would take guts to go in there alone for your piano lesson with old Miss Letti. Is it me, or is Mr. Cage looking more and more like that butler from the Rocky Horror movie? It also looks like this photo is attempting to hide how close the next door neighbors might be. Thanks for the weekend post.......it's a nice change from the endless election bruhaha.

He is probably just getting rid of them because he realizes what a waste it is for one family to own all that. If he isn't renting them out or has family living in them there is no reason for any sane person to own that many houses. If they were bought as an investment he would probably be better off buying into an REIT fund that doesn't have a lot of toxic assets.

I seriously doubt he gets 20 mil for every film. Somewhere between 7-20 million. That is still way to much for this guy!

I'm sure this professional flipper puts only enough down to buy with his good credit. He than does minimal renovations and flips them for insane sums.

This is the type of person that has driven property values to the stratosphere! He has helped cause the housing meltdown by pushing ALL prices up so HIGH that average people can no longer afford average homes that use to be affordable. The middle class buyers are holding the bag on houses that have dropped through the sky, while these P.O.S. mega rich flippers have not felt any effects yet. In many cases they are still asking huge inflated prices on houses they bought a year ago!

I hope Cage gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar on these properties. The southwest is just starting to plummet. As soon as it corrects we will see the RE market level out and home prices stabilize. He is playing to close to the edge now.

The previous owner bought the Prytania house from Anne Rice, though I don't believe she ever lived here. I've been inside and it's incredible. Was used for a long time as a chapel and so there are no walls between what I assume used to be the usual four parlors and a center hall -- only columns that mark where the hall used to be. The last owner had the longest dining table I've ever seen in a private house, which occupied the space to the right of the entry. The living space was to the left. Exterior proportions are deceptively good; it's not only open but has remarkably high ceilings and feels vast.

By Garden District standards it's not at all cramped by the house next door; the nearest structure is actually a garage. It has a comfortable relationship to Prytania, and is well buffered by its garden from 3rd Street.

It came through Katrina with only some damage to the garden, and didn't flood.

There is a slightly dark edge to the neighborhood's energy. I find it interesting, but know people who get really spooked out.

do any of his movies gross anywhere near 7 million?Isnt he straight to video?These days i doubt he get 5 million a pic and im sure he does most of his pics for a small sum or royalties/share...He was big in the 80-90s but who's interested in him now?

The guy works all the time. He is very well paid and likes to spend his money. He has done well with Real Estate in the past. Probably see's something he likes and can't control the urge to buy........

Cage may have little or no money in these houses. Here's how it can be done. The loan is made to buy the house as well as make the note payments (probably interest only) for x number of years, usually less than 5. In other words, he borrowed the money to buy the house AND he borrowed the money to make the house payments. (BYW the lender holds the payment money, and pays itself every month.) The problem maybe that money is gone, and now he is actually having to make the payments on the houses. If it's gonna cost him, why hold onto them. The problem is, he missed the top of the market, which was one to two years ago, depending on the location.

His level of trouble depends on how he bought the houses. Did he personally guarantee the loans, or were the houses the only collateral? If it's the former, he could lose a bundle. If it's the later, the lender will eat the loss in value, if any.

How quickly we forget!...That atrocious 'National Treasure 2' from 2007 earned $450 million world-wide, and that positively awful 'Ghost Rider' did $250 million. Nicy's take from those (on the back-end) was WELL over $20m each...and the boy has literally 6 films coming out in the next 2 years.

Me thinks he's deleveraging like the rest of the financial world -maybe due to nervous lenders, maybe from buying properties with other people's money (debt) at/near the height of the market...

His people have just realized that there are far better places for his copious amounts of cash. Perhaps they just want cash to wade heavily into a stock market that very likely will rebound quicker and with more velocity than real estate over the next 12-24 months.

This is a really cool article about the house . It describes its history in detail. It was at various times a sight of horrific slave abuse, a boarding house, and a girl's school. CREEPY stuff - can't believe that anyone -even nutty mr. cage - would want to own a property with such bad history.